after beginning to become a photographer


the escape’s on      this cove’s curve

                                 unhurried

to tremor of you in a bird’s wings
flanking itself all the colours of singing      ‘some cove’

we get down to the part where
narrative happens      favourite museums
in open spaces      closer now
for observing the offices daily
this is not god
but      ‘things happen’      earthy and oily
and warm to the touch of a tongue
inhabiting calm at the end of a story
before it continues

                                            the frost that chalked up
winter is no more real now than water
in the flow of Bedouin robes

                                                       ‘The Alexandria Quartet’

we take turns to supply the present
tense of summer      long days flex
and draw      their pictures in the sand
painting the sea with white paper